I thought it is going to be the same system as in the Klingon Corebook and the Tricorder Set?
That’s what they’ve said. I imagine it’ll be tweaked a bit though.
The AMA said it’s based on the Klingon/TOS version of the system.
Just for the record: This thread misses links Nathan Dowdell’s blog posts Ship-shape and Bristol Fashion and New Mechanics and Smaller Changes.
The first discusses changes to ships, most importantly the changes to the ship’s Power that will be no longer a resource. It says that the new Power system reduces bookkeeping. Sounds good.
The second covers, as the title predicts, smaller changes. Pastimes, (species’) Special Abilities and Expanded Ship Options all sound good.
Yet, I’m not sure what to think about the changes to terrain. The article says that heavy terrain (be it terrestial, i.e. rocky or swampy grounds, or spatial, i.e. a nebula) is crossed by spending Momentum or adding to Threat. Okay, sounds nice. But what about the strain on the engines, the blinding of sensors etc.? I always liked the options on Hazards (I think that is what they were called, back then) that came especially with the Science Division supplement and Utopia Planitia. Personally, I think they are the most overlooked and underused feature of 1e. I very much like the abstract zones principle of STA combat. It’s one of the features I immediately fell in love with. Yet, Hazards presented the opportunity to spice these zones up, once in a while, adding a tactical layer to the zones-system where “just in a straight line” isn’t always the best way to move from A to B.
Sounds like combat will move even more to the “abstract” and “narrative” end of the spectrum. In principle, this is something I like and that aligns with my style of play very well.
In contrast, what is a very interesting idea is the fact that taking cover now offers the opportunity to turn ranged combat into a opposing task. That sounds very interesting and I actually look forward to try this out in play. 
I also like that the “direct” option has seen some tweaking. I wonder whether it has been opened from niche users (commanding/executive officers on the one hand and towards supporting characters on the other) to the full chain of command. It would give rank a (greater) mechanical meaning with the interesting side-effect that the lower a character’s rank, the more likely they are able to act. (Just like in the real world, work is done by those down the ladder 
)
I always loved the “direct” task. Yes, high-ranking characters got the right to order their subordinates around. But it’s the subordinates who get the extra task, roll the dice and actually succeed with their task. One of the gems of pure genius in the 2d20 ruleset and one of the many reasons why I love it. 
I have to admit that there is a certain measurable degree of excitedness building up within me. 
I assume a GM can add a trait, or just force a roll, if travel needs to be spiced up.
My take from it was that the zones still exist, but they’ve effectively changed Sprint Tasks to a 0 Difficulty Task. Before, if you wanted to travel across multiple zones, you’d do the Sprint Task, which would then allow you to spend Momentum to add to the number of Zones you traverse. Now (and this is just my speculation from what they’ve said), the Sprint Task (possibly called that, possible called something else) is optional - you can just spend the Momentum directly and not bother with the task, or do the task anyway and drum up some Momentum to spend on it. That’s basically a Difficulty 0 Task, to my understanding.
I’ll have to look up Hazards, I thought they just increased Difficulty on tasks.
Yes, that’s basically the gist of it.
Hazards are (were?) traits, like everything else. It’s just that there were a bunch of pre-generated Hazards that one could base a star system map on.
But maybe it is indeed about reducing the standard Sprint task’s difficulty to 0 and I’m thinking about something that isn’t even touched. We will see. 
I guess? Most of the hazards mentioned in the sciences fivision will still work regardless. Lots of increasing difficulty, or doing a certain amount of tasks. Most don’t have challenge dice, and those that do can be easily adapted.
Tried to finish the AMA today, cause I was only half an hour in when I started to watch the recording on Twitch. Yet, the video seems to have disappeared from Twitch.
I think this video on YouTube might be another recording of the same event.
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That is indeed the AMA (albeit without the twitch chat).
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Question regarding some of the Talents/Abilities in the 2E QS. For example, something like the Captain’s Patient:
The wording is “generates 1 bonus Momentum for each d20 purchased.” What does that actually look like? Does it mean that if they spend 3 Momentum to get +2d20, the roll automatically generates 2 Momentum on top of the rest of the results? That’s what it looks like but I’m not confident about that.
Read:
- If the character spends Momentum to purchase bonus d20
- and if said character succeeds in the roll,
then the character generates a number of bonus Momentum equal to the amount of purchased dice, on top of any bonus Momentum generated with the roll.
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Assuming you’re talking about the Andorian Species Ability “Intense”/Trill Species Ability “Patient”.
Let’s say I’m doing a Difficulty 2 Task. It’s really important, so I buy 3 dice for 6 Momentum or Threat (depending ob which Species Ability you’re using) (I’m using 1e rules, so forgive me if I’ve doing something wrong for 2e, but it works to demonstrate the Ability).
I get four Successes. Normally, I’d get 2 Momentum back. But with Intense, I’ve bought three dice so I get an additional 3 Momentum back, for a total of 5 Momentum overall.
If I were to fail though, I get nothing.
It’s actually a pretty good Ability. In that (admittedly extreme) example, it’s given you either two dice in one roll or three dice over three rolls effectively for free.
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I would note that this is bonus momentum - you can only use it to improve the results of that task, you cannot add it back into the group pool.
So this is not a way to conserve momentum for later rolls.
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Thanks for sharing! I will have to listen to this. I only just got into STA this past Christmas and already prepurchased the second edition book.
I wonder whether the Scientific Method “mini-game” got some polishing. It’s definetly a gem of the ruleset, yet, sadly, I’ve not seen it used, very often.
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Hopefully they removed the “Right Way” element if they did - I’ve always thought the players should be encouraged to come up with the most interesting solution (as long as it fits the problem)!
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I think the same way, but I learned that some players want to have specific and fixed “right way” to discover and may be disappointed if GM is just hunting for “coolness factor” instead.
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That’s fair!
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I tend to use successive challenges on every step if time is important. Three times in 3 years of play every week my players made an extensive research that can’t be resolved in one or 2 rolls
- emergency evacuation of a planet to another one in the same system
- helping a 6 month baby aged by tachyons into a 6 years old kid (the most funny one because so many complications on rolls in final the kid has fused with an IA and is the organic computer IA of the ship)
- working on the ship to make it submersible in deep waters